314 



SCIENCE. 



[Vol. VII. , No. 165 



DEATH-RATE AND SANITATION IN 

 RUSSIA. 



A series of admirable articles on vital statistics 

 and the importance of sanitary measures is now 

 appearing in one of the St. Petersburg daily papers, 

 says the Lancet, founded on a paper by Dr. Eck. 

 The statistics given are certainly of a nature to set 

 every one in Russia thinking seriously about tak- 

 ing measures to improve them. Thus for the 

 year 1882, which seems to be the last year whose 

 vital statistics are available, the mortality in the 

 ten southern provinces was 2.6 per cent ; in the 

 seven eastern provinces, 3.9 per cent ; in the 

 thirteen middle provinces, 6.2 percent ; in the six- 

 teen western provinces, 3.1 per cent; and in the 

 fourteen northern provinces, 3.7 per cent. After 

 mentioning the various sanitary improvements 

 called for, as drainage of various kinds, a supply of 

 wholesome drinking-water, attention to and regula- 

 tions about buildings of all descriptions, and the es- 

 tablishment of infectious hospitals, Dr. Eck goes on 

 to say : " There is no need for us to puzzle our- 

 selves how these matters are to be done ; England 

 has accomplished so much, that we need simply 

 adapt what is ready to our hands to our own cir- 

 cumstances. In Germany, France, Austria, and 

 Italy, steps are already being taken in the same 

 direction, and all these countries take England as 

 their chief model, so that we need not be ashamed 

 to do so too." He then appeals to the economic im- 

 portance to Russia of a reduction of the mortality. 



On the principle of example being better than 

 precept, he goes into a long but easily compre- 

 hensible calculation of the comparative working- 

 value of horses whose ages at death vary ; and he 

 then takes the respective death-rates of Russia 

 (35), Germany (27), and England (19), and, by 

 means of a method of computation unusual 

 amongst British statisticians, explains that they 

 show that an Englishman has 53 years of life, 

 while a German has 37, and a Russian 29 only. 

 Reckoning a man's working-years to commence at 

 the age of 18, an Englishman has 35 years in 

 which to earn, against the Russian's 11 ; and the 

 latter will probably not save much more in his 11 

 working-years, above what it costs him to live, 

 than has been already expended upon him during 

 his 18 unproductive years ; but an Englishman 

 will have 24 years more in which to go on earn- 

 ing and saving. Again, out of 1,000 inhabitants 

 in Russia, only 373, or 37 per cent, are of an age 

 to earn, while in England there are 660, or 66 per 

 cent ; or each individual of working-age in Russia 

 has to provide for two non-workers, while in Eng- 

 land he has only half a non-worker for whom t<> 

 be responsible. 



MUIRS THERMAL CHEMISTRY. 



The recognition of the dual character of the 

 phenomena involved in chemical operations is no 

 new thing ; but it is only of late that the attempt 

 has been made to determine the relationship be- 

 tween transformations of matter and concurrent 

 changes of energy, and the efforts to this end 

 have been made almost wholly in the direction of 

 thermal phenomena, — in the investigation of the 

 quantities of heat wiiich enter or leave a chemi- 

 cal system during the transition between ac- 

 curately denned initial and final states, in a so- 

 called chemical change. 



Mr. Muir's presentation of the condition and 

 aims of the thermal chemistry of to-day is oppor- 

 tune. Based as a matter of necessity upon the 

 researches of Thomsen and Berthelot, it fairly 

 bristles with references to the works of these 

 masters, and, indeed, to all original papers of im- 

 portance in the discussion of the subject. Follow- 

 ing an outline sketch of the theory of energy and 

 the molecular hypothesis, the author discusses 

 successively the methods of thermal experimen- 

 tation and their application to the phenomena 

 of allotropy ; isomerism ; the neutralization of 

 acids by bases, and bases by acids ; the relative 

 avidity (as Thomsen terms it) of acids ; the classifi- 

 cation of elements and compounds in accordance 

 with thermo-chemical properties ; the phenomena 

 of melting, boiling, evaporation, dissociation, solu- 

 tion, and hydration ; and, finally, the chemical 

 interpretation of thermal data. Only such facts 

 as are immediately of use for purposes of illustra- 

 tion appear in the body of the book ; but all well- 

 established data of the subject (excepting such as 

 relate to boiling and melting points and specific 

 heats, for which reference elsewhere is made) are 

 to be found in the five appendices, which comprise 

 a third of the matter between the covers of the 

 volume. 



The work is for the most part independent in 

 opinion, and, with no pretence to exhaustiveness, 

 sufficiently full for the purposes of the general 

 reader, and quite intelligible to one acquainted 

 with the elements of general chemistry and mod- 

 ern ideas of energy. Facts are presented fear- 

 lessly and as separate as may be from the con- 

 straint of theory, and the explanation is fitted to 

 the facts. 



The stumbling-block in the way of the interpre- 

 tation of thermal values is the difficulty, often the 

 impossibility, of determining what portion of a 

 thermal change is of chemical origin, and what is 

 physical ; and it is not surprising to find the use 



The elements of thermal chemistry. By M. M. Patti- 

 son Mum, assisted by David Muir Wilson. London, Mac- 

 millan, 1885. 8°. 



